There will be random thoughts about dyeing, marbling and quilting. Hopefully there will be some information that is new to people. Nature is my inspiration and because of that, I reserve the right to publish lots and lots of pictures of animals, birds, butterflies and plants!

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Finally Finished the Mandala Quilt (Minus the Quilting...)

After much fiddling, I decided on these blocks to fill the corners. Trying to find a block that didn't stick out too much and which incorporated most of the colors wasn't all that easy. Some had too few pieces and some too many. I had cut up most of the background brown so really had to scrimp to get four blocks out of it as I wanted it as the background for them. I had plenty of the other colors.

I finally finished all four of those corner blocks and decided I wanted it longer than wider and would use a darker brown that I had as a border. This was the first pass.

So I cut the fabrics and tested. The verdict from both me and my daughter was the same problem as before -- too much brown!! And not enough value difference.

Here I tried all the different fabric I was considering around the quilt. Hmmmm....

I finally decided on a smallish bit of the dark brown (and it actually looks darker with using just a small amount), then another strip of that gray and then whatever was left of the pretty purple that was in the center of the pieced blocks. After all the trials and tribulations of this very challenging quilt, I am quite pleased with the results and look forward to some quilting. I know I am going to do feathers in the wide brown and probably something simple in the purple I will use the blocks themselves to dictate the quilting there. I will use dark brown thread for most although toying with using a contrasting thread in the brown only. It will be called the "Day of Forgotten Dyes" as the blocks were all made on a day I forgot most of my dyes and therefore just angrily threw things together with the few colors I had! I was not careful at all where I applied the dyes!